Broken Wings
by Kittenshift17
Summary: Lucius Malfoy wasn't always a cruel wizard bent on blood mania with mixed up priorities. There was a time when Lucius Abraxas Malfoy was just a little boy, willing to risk the wrath of his father to prove that showing kindness is not a weakness.


**Broken Wings**

* * *

><p>I am playing in Mother's garden when I first notice her. Initially it is no more than the tiny tinkling sound on miniature bells that accompanies her struggled fluttering as her broken wings frenzy and stutter that draws my attention. She is tangled in a spider web, so tiny and fragile that even her frantic wing-beats cannot free her from the sticky, clinging hold of the web. The Widowed Black has yet to notice her newest capture, but she is sure to return soon.<p>

I find myself intrigued as I watch the tiny blue fairy struggling feebly against the web. It is clear to me that she is not only trapped in that sticky lace, but also that one of her wings is broken and she looks somewhat dishevelled, as though she came to be trapped thus during the gale that blew during the night. Currently, the web and its prisoner are still safe in the shadow of a Dirigible Plum tree, but already the sun in sinking towards the western horizon, threatening to illuminate both the web and the delicate fairy.

Tentatively, knowing that the sun would no doubt do her harm should it touch her periwinkle skin for any significant amount of time, I approach the trapped fairy where she struggles in the web. Her tiny eyes widen when she sees me and she renews her frantic escape efforts in fear of my small hands as I reach for her, intent on freeing her. On helping her escape what might otherwise be a dismal and perhaps even terrifying fate.

Father told me of spiders and what they do to their victims. Of how they inject first a paralytic into the flesh of the poor souls trapped in their web, followed by wrapping them up like mummies in a swath of stickiness until they suffocate. He told me how the poison of the spider bite liquefies the insides of the victim and how when it is hungry, the spider returns and begins to eat the victim.

That seems a rather dismal fate for any creature, let alone one so small and delicate and beautiful as a fairy. Her scream is high pitched and terrified as I pluck her free of the sticky web, and immediately she begins to beat her tiny fairy fists against my hand in a bid for freedom. It is doubtful to me that she will be able to fly with her wing bent at that angle, but I do not wish to startle or scare her more than I already have.

"I won't hurt you, little fairy" I tell her, opening my hand so that she is sitting on my palm. She is so very small, not taller than the length of my longest finger. She is almost as skinny as my finger too. It's no wonder she got so blown about it last night's wind. She leaps immediately to her tiny feet the minute I release her, and jumps upwards off my palm, her broken wings fluttering uselessly before she falls back into my hand with a cry of pain.

"You shouldn't try to fly yet, little fairy" I tell her "You've broken one of your delicate wings. If I take you inside I can fetch some of the salve the elves gave me for when I break my nails digging in the dirt when Father is away. I'm sure some of that would fix your wing."

She stares at me fearfully and suspiciously as though she thinks this is all some trick to lure her inside. As though she think I'm some ogre who is going to squish her into jelly to have on my morning toast. She doesn't say anything, but when I look at her and wait for her permission to help her, she slowly nods her head.

"What is your name, wizard child?" she asks me in a voice like a thousand tiny sleigh bells over a tickling stream.

"My name is Lucius" I tell her proudly, walking slowly towards the house and noticing the way her tiny hands grip one of my fingers for balance as she sways with my movements. "Lucius Abraxas Malfoy of Malfoy Manor. What is your name, little fairy?"

"Jetamio" she replies, a smile on her tiny blue face. She is so small that her face is the same size as one of my fingernails, and I have to squint slightly to make out her happy expression.

I am careful as I walk through the Manor, listening to her tell me how she was flying home yesterday evening when a breeze blew up and caught her in last night's storm. The gale-force winds from last night's storm were enough to almost blow me off my feet when I stepped out to investigate all the noise and I shudder to think how such wind might affect such a small, delicate fairy. She tells me about how she got stuck in a mini whirlwind along with sticks and leaves and other debris of the storm, and that's how she broke her wings.

I nod along as I listen to her, eyeing the portraits that line practically every wall of the Manor. Some of them have begun to mutter to each other, some following us along as I take the long walk towards my bedroom. I watch them closely, feeling dread curl in my stomach, knowing they're going to tell Father what I'm doing. Knowing I'm going to be in trouble for helping this little fairy to fix her broken wings. Such kindness is beyond Father.

Kindness, he says, is just another word for weakness.

I told Mother once that if Father believes kindness to be weakness than he must be very strong indeed. She covered her mouth and shook her head, her eyes wide with terror to hear my words before she pulled me against her, kneeling down next to me and pressing her face against my shoulder as though I said something bad. She cried and sobbed and told me I mustn't say such things, else Father will hear and then it will be to the post for me.

The post, I shudder, thinking of the awful stone column deep in the bowels of the Manor's many dungeons. That's the place Father takes people who upset him. I know because once, many years ago, that's where he took mother after she lost my baby brother. Father doesn't know that I followed him as he dragged my mother by the hair deep into the dungeons where he chained her to that column and used the Cruciatus curse on her until she could barely speak from all the screaming.

He doesn't know either, that after he did that to my mother I went into the garden and found all the itchy fluff that comes off the trees that grow there. He doesn't know I brought it into the house one day when he and Mother were out for the day and that I snuck into his chambers and put it in all his clothes.

If Father finds out that I'm helping a fairy, it will be to the post for me for certain. He hates all creatures who aren't wizards. And even other wizards he has little time for unless they're like us and can date their lineage back for centuries to the beginning of wizardkind. If he knew, he'd probably try and squash little Jetamio the fairy under his big boots. But what Father doesn't know can't hurt anyone.

When I reach my room, I make sure to lock the door tight, and I sit Jetamio on my nightstand before digging into the drawer in my bathroom where the salve is. She looks around my room with interest, and squeaks in surprise when I dab a thimbleful of salve onto the tear in her wing, making sure to line it up as best I can so that the pieces will heal together straight and she'll still be able to fly.

"You are a very kind wizard, Lucius Malfoy" the little fairy tinkles at me in her high soft voice "I didn't know wizards still knew how to be kind."

"Most don't" I reply.

"Maybe it is because you are so small. You seem much smaller than all the other wizards I have seen." She tells me.

"That's because I'm seven" I tell her "When I get older I'll grow tall like the other wizards."

"I hope you stay just as kind as you are now," She tells me. She opens her little mouth as though she might say something else, but is cut off as I jump backwards in shock and fear when my bedroom door explodes inwards.

Standing there, his wand held aloft and trained on me is none other than my Father. Abraxas Malfoy. The Strongest Man in the World.

"Fly away Jetamio" I murmur to the shocked fairy, her wing already healed as she flutters in front of me uncertainly. "Fly away before he can kill you."

She hesitates for a moment and the jet of green light shoots out the end of Father's wand, aiming right for her. I wave my hand at her, and she zooms away from the spell and out the open door that leads to my balcony. Father chases after her, hurling hexes and curses, trying to murder the little fairy I have saved, but she is too small and too quick for my father, and I feel a surge of hope as she dives into a clump of dense flowers, disappearing from view.

"You helped that little beast escape!" Father roars at me, whirling to glare down at me, his grey eyes huge and wrathful. If he were a dragon he would probably spew fire over me until I was naught but a pile of ash, he looks so furious with me. I cringe back from him when he raises his hand with the intention to strike me. I know I will be punished for my fear, and were I to cry out, I would be punished even more severely.

"How many times have I told you that kindness is weakness?" Father hisses at me, his hand still raised like a snake about to strike. I know he wants an answer. Nothing angers father more than silence on my behalf when he asks me a question.

"Twenty-seven, Father" I reply, knowing I need to straighten my shoulders and accept my punishment stoically else I'll only be punished again, but finding that I am unable to do so in the face of his rage.

"Well it seems that simply telling you is no longer enough. If you cannot learn this lesson through my demonstrations, then you will learn them another way. You are seven. It's high time you put such disobedience and childish naivety aside. And since telling you had no effect, clearly I will have to be more expressive in my teachings." He snarls at me with all the ferocity of a werewolf on the full moon and the same thirst for violence glowing in his gaze.

His grip is harsh and biting as he seizes my upper arm in such a grip that later there will be a purple bloom shaped like his fingers against my flesh, dragging me from the room and I know I'm destined for the post. As I think of Jetamio the little blue fairy with the broken wing, I can't say I'm sure it's really been worth it.


End file.
